Ralph Crane is Professor and Head of English at the University of Tasmania, Australia. He was educated at the University of Wales, Swansea, the University of Victoria, BC, and the University of Tasmania. He worked in universities in New Zealand for 14 years before taking up his current position in 2004. He has published widely on colonial and postcolonial fictions, and has written or edited 21 books, including scholarly editions of several Anglo-Indian texts. His most recent books are Cave: Nature and Culture and a new scholarly edition of R.M. Ballantyne's The Coral Island (both with Lisa Fletcher).

Jane Stafford teaches English at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. She is the author of essays and articles on colonial and New Zealand literature and is the co-author of Maoriland: New Zealand Literature, 1872-1914 and the co-editor of The Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature.

Mark Williams teaches English at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. He was educated at Auckland University and at the University of British Columbia, where he gained a Ph.D. in 1983. He has taught at several universities in New Zealand and was a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo. Mark has published numerous articles, edited books, and monographs on New Zealand, modern, and postcolonial literature, including Leaving the Highway: Six Contemporary New Zealand Novelists, Patrick White, and The Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature. He lives in Wellington and is married to Jane Stafford.

Chris Ackerley, University of Otago
Katrina Anderson, Simon Fraser University
Clare Bradford, Deakin University
Carolyn Burdett, Birbeck College, University of London
Ralph Crane, University of Tasmania
Tanya Dalziell, University of Western Australia
Michelle Elleray, University of Guelph
Graeme Johanson, Monash University
Chelva Kanaganayakam, University of Toronto
Gail Low, University of Dundee
Andrew McCann, Dartmouth College
Kirstine Moffat, University of Waikato
Shyamala A. Narayan, Jamia Millia Islamia
Neil ten Kortenaar, University of Toronto
Elizabeth Leane, University of Tasmania
Mavis Reimer, University of Winnipeg
Harry Ricketts, Victoria University of Wellington
Leah Rosenberg, University of Florida
Lyman Tower Sargent, University of Missouri - St. Louis
Paul Sharrad, University of Wollongong
Karis Shearer, University of British Columbia
Angela Smith, University of Stirling
Vanessa Smith, University of Sydney
Heather Snell, University of Winnipeg
Jane Stafford, Victoria University of Wellington
Philip Steer, Massey University
Tamara Wagner, Nanyang Technical University
Mark Williams, Victoria University of Wellington

"Because of its general accessibility and the huge amount of material covered by its distinguished contributors, this book will undoubtedly be useful for undergraduates...Overall, this book contributes impressively to a broader sense of how Australasian literature has intersected over a long period of time with narratives that have circulated around the world." --Paul Giles, Australian Book Review

"The twenty-six original essays provide a remarkable portrait of the English-language novel's dynamic history in every corner of the globe...the book offers a picture of multiple literary histories working simultaneously, and of a time when the English reading public's zone of curiosity expanded rapidly." --Times Literary Supplement

"..this survey covers British authors writing about "the world," whether or not they had ever been there; colonists seguing into nationalists; and indigenous authors. ("World" excludes Japan and Colonial America.) As the editors concede, the result is necessarily a "hybrid," covering imperial locations ranging from South Africa to India. Moreover, as Mark Williams notes in his concluding essay, "Critical Contexts," these are literatures without a strongly established "canon." Nevertheless, the collection is united by a recurring fascination with the romance genre in all its forms (although neither it nor the Gothic have an index entry), as chapters on Indian, African, South African, Caribbean fiction, and "colonial Romance" indicate. Though the romance could be "escapist" or conservative, it also launched political and aesthetic critiques of the imperial status quo. The essays in the sections... amply ground the area and author surveys." ---M. E. Burstein, CHOICE